


Detective Stories

by esama



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, F/M, Hurt and comfort, Kid Fic, Not Season 3 Compliant, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 01:05:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1113683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John stops writing the blog after Sherlock's fall, almost stops writing completely. Then he finds a new <br/>audience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detective Stories

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on fanfiction.net on 02/03/2012  
> Proofread by Julie and Spurio

 

1.

 

For a long while after breaking free from 221B, John doesn't know what to do. He has a new apartment – a smaller, poorer one than 221B, but it's still in London and closer to his work than Baker Street, and it's nice enough now that it's furbished. He has his things sorted out – his bills, for once, are all paid, his finances, in something like an order thanks to what Sherlock had left him in his will, and he doesn't have to fret about whether or not he can spare the money for biscuits the next time he goes to shop. His work is better than ever – his psychosomatic problems haven't come back, thank god, and he can take more hours at the clinic than before without having to worry about being called away by Sherlock.

And he has no idea what to do with himself. There's too much _time_ now, when before there hadn't been enough, and he has nothing to occupy him once the clinic hours are done and he's sorted out the most recent batch of shopping to their allotted places in his kitchenette. Every day he's faced with five to eight hours of free time and with nothing to fill it.

There are no more investigations, no more odd guests, no more chasing and experimenting, no more… Sherlock. There is no more Scotland Yard either, no visits and no calls, no pints with Greg, much to John's sad understanding – no more sneers from Donovan or Anderson. Even Mycroft's eased off, and there are no more texts or sudden visits, no dark cars following him and CCTV cameras doing their dance to follow him, no more Anthea, no more Diogenes club. And, after the sixteenth of June, there is no more blog either, no emails after he changed his address, no more messages, nothing. He's grateful that the reporters have finally left him in peace, and that the internet rumba is behind him, but…

At first, he watches telly, but without really seeing it – it's just white noise to fill his eyes and ears, channels flicking on and off as he determinately avoids the news, any sort of news. That grows tiresome quickly, and he's no longer used to watching the thing anyway – in 221B, there was never a good time to watch the telly: if Sherlock wasn't there, John was too busy trying to clean, and if he was, then the telly was most certainly out of the question, Sherlock never let the programs pass by without some critique.

After that, he reads. He carefully avoids detective stories and instead reads horror stories, thrillers, biographies and historical texts – but despite everything, he's not much of a reader. He gets tired with the thrillers; they don't really live up to his own past, and horror stories make him bored. Biographies entertain him for a while, but he keeps wondering about the clothing of the people they write about, their shirt sleeves, their nails, their hairstyles, wondering if it would've been possible to deduce the whole story from their shoes, the knees of their trousers. Historical texts come and go without notice – in the end, he spends most of his time reading medical journals, but that's study and not really enjoyable.

He misses it all. The chasing and investigating and the quiet moments back in Baker Street, just before Sherlock got bored when things were actually _nice_ and when little things would make them giggle. He misses the freedom of going into restaurants without having to worry about money – Sherlock tended to get discounts wherever he went, most times he didn't have to pay at all. He misses writing the blog, even having Sherlock constantly ridicule his writing, pointing out the stupidity and the flaws in it, constantly arguing about the titles.

What he misses the most, though, is telling people about Sherlock. The blog had been great for that, and it had given him pleasure in a way nothing else ever had, to just show it all to people. "See, this is how brilliant he is, this is why I live with him, this is why I don't mind how insulting and abusive he can be." It had been… _nice_ , to read the feedback from people who marvelled at Sherlock's reasoning and the progress of the cases, who were sometimes just as excited to read about the investigations, as John had been to experience them. Most of all, it had been nice to show people that, yes, Sherlock was cold and aloof and all the bad things, but the good outweighed the bad and the world was so much better off with him in it.

Except, Sherlock is no longer in it.

And John, having no new stories to tell and no one who would listen – except to ridicule and insult – doesn't know what to do with himself.

 

2.

 

After a month, John keeps finding himself returning to his laptop, in front of an empty text file. A couple of times, he starts writing, thinking back to the many stories he hadn't written, some which Sherlock had mentioned – the case of the Dayes Files for one, even if it had turned out to be a complete waste of time, or maybe the story of the Painting of Mona _Lena_ that had left them giggling in their flat for the rest of the evening…

But every time he starts, he stops after the title, because he's writing another post to his blog, and he knows he won't ever post it. The blog's gone to a freeze anyway – a few more months and the site will remove the blog as inactive, unless he shows some sign of life. And he knows he won't – it will just be for the best, if the thing goes away. The posts will probably still circulate the net – and appear in newspapers, whenever they need a gag and can't think of anything better – but eventually it will fall into obscurity and the entire thing will be over.

But John still wants to write. He wants to write more than ever before – or maybe, in the way he hadn't since starting at Bart's as a junior. Back in high school, when he had been somewhat unpopular and withdrawn, he had been writing constantly. Most of what he had written had been stupid stories and ridiculous articles, all just for fun – he has no idea what has happened to all of it, where it has gone. He remembers that Harry had ridiculed him, and that he had spent more time hiding what he had written than he had spent doing much anything else. Maybe his mum had kept some of it – she had told him to, saying that he might want to read them later, when he was older. Who knows what had happened to them after she had died, Harry had gotten most of her things and knowing Harry…

He doesn't call her to check out, really doesn't want to see what sort of angst ridden bollocks he might've come up in fits of teenage hormones, but he remembers how it felt like, back then. When the first thing he thought of every morning was the story idea he had had just before falling asleep, when he spent classes scribbling notes on the back of his maths notes, when he couldn't go home fast enough, because he just wanted to start writing.

It feels a bit like that now, except he can't. The stories are there – he wants to rewrite the Study in Pink in full, not as just report of the general events, but as a _story_ , full with detail and divided into acts, into chapters, but… he gets stuck on the bloody _title_ , not to mention about being able to start the first sentence.

Because, really, who would read it? Except maybe as a joke, as a novelty, something to mention in the pub – "I read that drivel from that Watson bloke, right lunatic he is, still going on about that fake detective, what's-his-name, Sherly something…" And John can't bare that thought, can't stomach it – it chokes him and makes his fingers shake as he presses the shift key down to start, eventually making him reach for the backspace and delete the words until the text file is empty and white and _blank_ , again.

All he can do, is do the in between bits of writing – the things he did in the classroom. Between patients at the clinic, he writes down notes into a little pocket notebook he now carries with him, about the things he remembers that happened. The exact words Sherlock had said, the first time they met, the way Sherlock had deduced things about people, where and how he had drawn the conclusions. John can't see it himself, but Sherlock used to tell him, between fits of lethargy and agitation, how nails could tell everything, the stains underneath them – were they short, long, painted, manicured, neatly cut and filed or bitten down to the cuticles. And from there on it went to the fingers, the calluses and lack of them, did the person use lotion or were their hands dry, what jewellery they wore and how, when, how often…

Sometimes, John tries the tricks himself, trying to remember everything. He looks at the hands of his patients – but they rarely tell him much. Rings told him some, watches, a little bit more, but the nails, the knuckles, the inside and the back of their palms, are as unreadable to him as a blank wall – most men have short nails, very rare people in these modern times of hygiene leave dirt beneath their nails, and even if woman have nailed, manicured hands… then what? Their clothing tells him more, but not much – maybe, if they had walked in with their work clothing, but only those with emergencies walked into a doctor's office in stained overalls. Most changed their clothing to something cleaner and more proper.

But as John writes down, he starts figuring out how he could bring it into reality in a story – he knows he can make up believable deductions, like Sherlock’s, but inventing characters with clothing and behaviour that are more characteristic. He starts playing with the idea, inventing characters – a country doctor with a dog and reasonably well doing practice, with a habit of taking walks and a good relationship with his colleagues, all of which could be deduced from his cane, an intellectual who had had ups and downs and whose wife had grown cold to him, who got nervous easily and sometimes worked as a lecturer, which could be read from his hat. It is surprisingly fun, even if he knows that it wouldn't work in real life – honestly, who has canes, these days? And very few wore hats _that_ often.

But he still can't _write_ it, because every time he does he keeps seeing the news reports and the reporters and the random passers-by on the street who, in those first weeks after Sherlock's fall, kept pausing when they saw him. "Hey, aren't you that bloke who used to follow that psycho…" and, "Weren't you the one who wrote that blog about that lunatic…" and he just _can't_ write, knowing that if he does, if he ever tries to put it anywhere, if he ever shows it to anyone, _that_ would be the audience.

That all changes when he meets Mary Morstan – and her three year old daughter, Jeanie.

 

3.

 

Mary Morstan is beautiful, brave, kind, loving and one of the strongest if not _the_ strongest woman he has ever seen. The first time John sees her, he's struck with the realisation of all those things and she doesn't need to say anything or do anything, and he can see it. Maybe it's Sherlock methods rubbing off on him or maybe it's the understanding of a doctor, but John can see it all with a single glance.

It all happens in the front of the clinic, just when John's heading for the stop to wait for the bus that would take him nearest to his flat. She's there, with her little girl, waiting for the bus too. They sit at the stop's bench, the woman with the girl in her lap, talking about a book they had been reading in the hospital waiting room. They both sound so happy and cheerful, the little girl contently leaning on her mother's chest as she recalls the story of the boy with the dog and the adventure they had had through the backyard.

He can see the woman's medical history in her face, in the hat she wears, in the way her hands look. Thin, pale hands, with neat nails, pale with a lack of blood beneath, the hollowed cheeks and dry lips, smiling despite the tiredness of her eyes. She has no eyelashes, no eyebrows and John knows that there is no hair beneath the fluffy white wool hat on her head.

She has cancer, he knows instantly, and it's serious – terminal. She's going through chemotherapy and probably something else – it's been going for a while now, too, judging by her withered state. He isn't sure how he knows, but he does know that it's having little effect – it's slowing the process of the cancer, giving her time, but she's going to die. And, judging by the look in her eyes, part happiness and part horrible, constant worry, she doesn't have as much time as she wants and needs. Nowhere near enough time to raise her daughter.

She notices him staring and turns to face him – judging by the careful way she schools her features into an amiable, but distant smile, she's used to being stared at, and not favourably. John smiles at her, awkward and respectful, because he's seen strength, and _strength_ , and the woman before him has the latter. She is fighting, enjoying her life, caring for and loving her daughter, and she's not bitter. And John's seen enough people in a variety of circumstances, having a variety of reactions, to respect the hell out of her.

"Hi," he says a bit awkwardly, a bit sadly – except _not_ because somehow, he can't feel sad for her. Something about her doesn't allow it. "Nice day today."

The woman blinks, surprised – and John feels a bit like an idiot, but he can't really think of anything better to say. "Yes," she then agrees calmly, smiling – confused but not intending to show it, not in front of her daughter, staying strong even now. "Are you waiting for the four-twenty?"

"Yeah," John nods, glancing at his wrist watch. "It should be here in couple of minutes."

The woman nods and looks down at her daughter, who is yawning in her lap, leaning her little head against her shoulder. The little girl has her mother's bright blue eyes, and would have her chin once she grew. She gets her skin from her father, though, it's a slightly darker shade than the woman's would've been even if she wasn't so pale thanks to her treatments.

"You can ask, you know," the woman then says. "I'm used to people asking."

"Asking what?" John enquires, not exactly _stupidly_ , but it's not quite as intelligent as he might've liked.

"How bad is it, how long do I have, does Jeanie have it…" the woman trails away, shrugging.

"It's bad, you have less than two years, and she doesn't," John says, before thinking better of it, and as she gives him a startled look, John feels a moment like Sherlock must've, the very first time he had deducted something about someone and they hadn't realised how. Then he feels a bit like an idiot and gives her an awkward smile. "Sorry. I'm a doctor – it's a bit of an occupational hazard, seeing these things," he explains it away, and sits down to the bench beside her.

"Oh," the woman blinks at him, the surprised and slightly worried look fading into curiosity. "How did you know I have less than two years?"

"By your behaviour," John admits, and then explains. The woman listens to her, her eyebrows which she doesn't have anymore raising up as he finishes the explanation, feeling like an utter berk – and yet, somehow, feeling better than he has in months.

"That," the woman says once he is done, "was amazing."

John barely manages to bite back the gasp, the wince, the guilty apology, the urge to kick himself. "Not really," he said with a self-deprecating smile, because Sherlock would've been able to find out so much more and he cheated – he has medical training, after all. "John Watson," he says then, to cover up his own reactions, holding out his hand.

"Mary Morstan," she says, smiling and taking the hand. Her palm is warm, her fingertips cold – John has to almost physically restrain himself from closing her fingertips in his hand to warm them. "And this is Jeanie," Mary adds, looking down to the little girl who glances up and smiles.

"How do you do, Jeanie?" John asks politely.

The little girl looks up to him seriously, taking him in. "I'm good. Would you like to hear about a book I read?" she then asks, and John admits that he'd like that very much.

 

4.

 

Somehow, John isn't entirely sure how, he and Mary end up going on a date. While little Jeanie runs about in the playground of a park where they had decided to go, John brings Mary a warm cup of tea, and they sit watching the little girl playing, talking quietly.

Mary was originally diagnosed with bone cancer, just shortly before Jeanie's birth – the cancer was found in her right thigh and it was malignant. She was lucky and got bone craft very shortly after the little girl had been born, and for a while it had seemed she was in the clear. "Then, just when Jeanie turned one, they found that the cancer had metastasized to my lung," she explains, while Jeanie shrieks joyfully, sliding down a spiralling slide not far from them. "They operated on me again, but couldn't get it all – and then it spread to my other lung too…"

"Ah," John says, not unsympathetically but completely without pity. She doesn't sound sad – or terrified – all she is, is calm and collected. Accepting and understanding. "Aggressive, I suppose," he adds, sipping his tea.

"Very," she agrees with a smile. "The doctors have somewhat optimistically given me year and a half, with treatment."

There is little John can add to that, and she doesn't seem to be looking for any placations or false hope. So they spend a moment in silence, just taking in the cool winter air and the sounds of Jeanie playing. "She seems like a very energetic girl," John then says, smiling a little at the way the girl hurriedly climbs up to slide down again.

"She is. She's been very brave," Mary chuckles, shaking her head. "But then, things have always been like this for her, so it's not it's a surprise. She understands – not everything, of course not, she's too young – but… well. She is strong."

That is the first time Mary sounds anything but calm – a hint of something that's not quite worry seeps into her voice. Knowledge, anxious knowledge, and a hint of sadness. John glances at her and says nothing at first, taking in her distant, still smiling expression. Somehow he knows that after Mary dies, there will be no one to pick up the slack – Jeanie will be taken in by child services.

He hesitates for a moment, before clearing his throat. "What happened to her father, if you don't mind me asking?" something happened, he's sure of that – she doesn't act like a taken woman, doesn't wear rings, hasn't mentioned a partner. And she wouldn't have asked him out, if there was someone, she doesn't seem – isn't – that kind of woman.

"Ah, who knows. It was a one-night stand, some guy I met at a party, I never did try to contact him later. Bit of a bad decision on my part, maybe, but everybody makes those," Mary says, and turns to him with a smile. "I'm grateful though. I'd never regret it. Jeanie is the best thing that's happened to me, especially now. Even if I'm not the best mother she could've had," she adds, turning to look at the girl again.

John nods, and respects her a bit more for that.

It's not the last time they go out, nowhere near – that weekend they have another date, and though Mary suggests that she can get a baby sitter, John tells her to bring Jeanie along. They go to the museum, where there is an exhibition of children's clothing through the ages, and while Jeanie dashes about from ten thousand BC to eighteen hundreds, giggling like, well, a little girl at the sight of a wax-doll of a boy standing there in what amounts to a dress by modern standards, John and Mary follow her, holding hands.

After the fifth date, John walks Mary home, and watches how she puts Jeanie to the bed, reading to the little girl a picture book about a boy with a dog and their adventure in the back yard, exploring the forgotten items there. Something about the sight of the bald headed woman and the dark haired little girl leaning over the book resonates inside John, and for the first time since Sherlock's death he doesn't feel quite so hollow.

And as he listens to Jeanie ask about the items the boy with a dog had found and how they had ended up in the yard, John decides that maybe it is time to forget his old audience and look to a new one.

 

5.

 

While he and Mary go from having dates and going out to simply being together, John starts forty five stories, and, after two months of dating Mary, actually finishes one of them. It is titled _The Detective_ , and it's nothing like John's blog entries used to be. Jeanie is the first one ever who gets to hear it, the first member of John's new audience. She also becomes his very first editor.

The first draft of the finished story starts with, " _There was once upon a time a very clever Detective_ ," but Jeanie says that it's old fashioned and he should change it, and he shouldn't tell her that the detective is clever, because she won't believe him unless he shows it.

"It's easy to say that a princess is pretty, because everyone can see that," she says with all the brilliance of a three year old. "You can't see cleverness on someone's face, though."

"Oh?" John, who hadn't expected to be paused until he finished reading, asks with some surprise. "How do you figure that out?"

"It's just how it is," Jeanie says with a frown. "Anyone can _say_ they are clever. But they _aren't_ , unless they _are_ and can _prove_ it. Everybody knows that."

No, everybody doesn't, John thinks, and feels a little prouder of her than he did before, something that honestly should've been impossible. Who knows where she had learned it from, from Mary or from her day nursery, probably from both, but it is amazing and humbling.

So, the story’s beginning turns into, " _In a quiet street in London there lived a Detective_ ," but he himself figures that _London_ is maybe too specific, so it eventually starts with, " _In a quiet street in a very busy city, there lived a Detective_." From there it continues on to explaining how the Detective is thought to be a bit mad and a bit weird, and how many people doubt him – which Jeanie follows with all the seriousness of a three year old.

"You should put someone there to say something mean to him," she says, and John does as she orders, adding the character of the Surly Scientist a bit earlier. From there on, he continues the story with the introduction of the Inspector, who knows that the Detective is very clever, and comes to him for help even though everyone else doubts him, and doesn't want him to bring the Detective.

It takes them a while to agree upon how things go with the first crime scene – John had at first worried about making it a murder, thought of changing it into a robbery or maybe a theft or something, but in the end he goes ahead with it the original, because if there is anyone who needs to learn about death, it is Jeanie. He asks Mary about it too and she agrees that, so as long as he doesn't go into gruesome details, it is alright. "Children need to learn about death one way or another, and yours won't be the first fairytale with death in it."

"Just the first that investigates it," John muses, when later making notes in accordance to Jeanie's objections and agreements.

"Hm, yes. But so long as you put a happy ending to it, it'll be alright, I think," Mary says, and John decides to change the ending – because it's not exactly kid friendly, if it ends with the killer shot.

It is a trouble and a half to turn the Study in Pink into a child friendly retelling, but thankfully, there is only one death involved in it. The Lady in Pink isn't in the story for too long and most of that scene is taken up with the Detective finding clues and thinking about them, " _The Lady's coat was dry except for the collar, the Detective found, and wondered. The Lady was indoors and there was no water nearby. So how had the collar of her coat gotten wet? Had there perhaps been rain?_ " and " _Then the Detective found dried mud in the back the Lady's left ankle, and wondered. It was only dusty indoors, so how had her foot gotten so muddy? It must have something to do with the wet collar,_ " and so forth.

It is rather fun, too, trying to lay out the evidence and then trying to coax Jeanie into figuring it out – why is the coat collar wet, when the rest of the coat is dry, why is there mud on her foot? It is tricky, leading the reader to the conclusion that the Lady in Pink must have had a case with wheels that had splattered her foot is harder than the conclusion that there had been rain, but she has dried some since. Jeanie is a _very_ smart little girl, though, and with a few cues she figures it out just before the story gives the conclusion.

The story ends up being much longer than John originally planned – the deductions take a lot of space, when put into words that children might be able to follow. In the end, the Detective finds out who the killer is and has him captured – John leaves out the bit about two pills and has to come up with the discussion with the Detective and the killer because Sherlock never told him what he and Hope had talked about. Jeanie is in the end very satisfied with the story, telling him that it's good, even with the dead woman.

"You should make drawings for it," she says determinately. "I want to see what the Detective looks like. And the Lady in pink – and the case too. And the evil killer."

"I don't know, honey, I'm not much of an artist," John admits with a chuckle.

"I'll teach you," she says and smiles up to him. "You'll be good in no time at all."

Later, when John and Mary retire for the night, Mary asks him if he intends to publish the story. "It is a bit of an unusual story, as far as children's stories go. I don't think they usually involve death like that," she muses, resting her head on his chest while he runs his hand up and down her spine, enjoying her weight as slight as it is. "Though there are the original Grimm fairytales…"

"Yeah," John hums, thinking about it. "I doubt any publisher would be interested in it, though. Or if they were, they'd want me to change the murder bit."

"Would you?" Mary asks, glancing up and looking at him, considering.

"No," John says. "I already changed too much."

Then, for the first time, he tells her about Sherlock, speaking quietly and softly in the hushed comfort of Mary's bedroom, and for the first time since _then_ , his throat doesn't seem to close up around the sound of Sherlock's name. Mary listens without a word, resting her chin on his chest and just watching him, not judging, not doubting, just listening.

"Yeah," she says, once he's finished with everything. "I think you should keep the murder bit. Why didn't you include yourself into the story, though, when you were there?"

John blinks, frowning a bit. "I… don't know," he says then, and he really doesn't. "I think, I just… no, I really don't know."

Mary hums, and then pecks a kiss to his lips. "It's a good story, one way or the other," she says, and doesn't ask again.

 

6.

 

John wonders why he has excluded himself from the first story for a long while, not coming to any sort of conclusion even after finishing the final edit of the story, and pronouncing himself satisfied with it. It doesn't seem to be missing anything, though, without him there. But despite the fact that he has dressed up the language and edited the final draft as far as it can go, he can't, won't, send it to any potential publisher.

Instead he starts another story, while Mary starts another bout of chemo. It is a hard time for them all, Mary is tired and lethargic afterwards, and then she catches the flu which threatens to bring her down. John practically moves into the house at that time, taking time off from the clinic to look after her and Jeanie, who is worried and serious, but terribly afraid about her mother's illness.

"She has a killer inside her," the little girl just says, frowning. "Some people have killers inside them – like illnesses, infec-tions, cancer and bac-te-ri-a," she pronounces the word carefully. "Mum has a killer called cancer. It's in her lungs."

"Yes, she does," John agrees a bit sadly, lifting the little girl in his arms and hugging her close.

"I wish there was a detective who hunts down killer cancers," Jeanie mutters to his neck, hugging him close.

"Doctors try," John says. "But cancer is really clever and really bad – and sometimes, as hard as doctors try to capture the cancer and help people like your mum, they can't always."

"But the doctors aren't as good as the Detective," the little girl says and sighs, falling silent.

John says nothing, because there is nothing to say, and he knows better than to give Jeanie any false hope – especially after all the trouble Mary has gone through, making the little girl understand what was coming. Instead he sighs and kisses the little girl's cheek, before carrying her out of her mother's bedroom, to distract her with some cartoons.

Mary gets better eventually, but she is weak and tired for a long while, and can't have her treatments until the flu passes. John watches over her and Jeanie the best he can, hovering about their flat and about his girlfriend, who doesn't tell him not to worry. Not that it would've done any good – John knows the score better than he might've wanted to, knows how easily a person like Mary, weakened by her ailment and her treatment both, can get sick, sicker and worse.

"I think I should move in," he says, once her cough stops and she spends more time awake than asleep. "And I think you should marry me."

"How romantic you are," Mary laughs, patting his cheek and then pausing, looking at him more closely. "You're serious."

John doesn't deny it. If it was any other person than Mary, he would've made more effort – there would've been romantic dinners and flowers and candles and a golden ring. But Mary is the most practical woman he's ever known and her version of romance lacks the trappings completely – her version of romance is just being there and being strong. John isn't sure if he can be that, but by god he wants to try.

"So, I should, should I?" Mary asks then, looking at him thoughtfully. "Why? Because I'm sick, because I need help?"

It's not an accusation, not exactly, Mary knows him better than to think he's made the proposal out of duty or pity – he knows better than to offer anything like that to her, she'd never accept it. But there is a hint of suspicion there, and he knows she thinks he's proposing because he's being pressured by her illness.

"Because," John starts, wetting his lips. "I won't deny that you're sick, and that I think you need help. If I was here all the time, it would be easier on you and Jeanie," he then says, lifting his hand to her cheek – she's so pale, his skin looks downright _brown_ against her. "But I want to be _here_ every minute I can, Mary. I want to be here and belong here and when… when it finally happens, I want to be there too. And afterwards…"

He's not sure if he's fit to be a single dad, but he loves Jeanie – she's a brilliant little girl and so courageous. He wants to try, because just thinking of the alternative leaves him cold.

The woman he's fallen so deeply in love with that he can't _see_ straight smiles sadly at him. "You're a masochist, you know that?" she says fondly, folding him into her arms. "First Sherlock Holmes, and now me."

"I wasn't with Sherlock," he argues against her chest, but only out of habit.

"Weren't you?" she asks, and smiles. "It's a bit selfish of me, doing this to you," she then says. "Having you and keeping you, knowing that I'm bound to leave you. And not just leave you, but leave you with my burdens."

"Jeanie isn't a burden," John says, wrapping his arms around her slim waist. "And besides, everyone's selfish. I'm too."

"You really aren't," she laughs and kisses him.

 

7.

 

They don't have a wedding – they just do the paper work, both for their partnership and for shared guardianship over Jeanie, sign them at the registry office and become John and Mary Watson while Jeanie holds the ring box until the papers have been put away. She puts the rings to their fingers and nods with serious satisfaction and, just like that, they're a family.

John empties his small apartment, and moves in with his wife. He soon has his own table for his laptop, there is space for his clothing in the wardrobe, for his toothbrush in the bathroom and ignoring Mary's arguments, he starts paying the rent by himself – though all of that is just the surface. The more important bits include him making breakfast and carrying it to the bed, waking up Jeanie and helping her get dressed, cleaning the apartment and buying the groceries and making himself an essential, necessary part of the house.

"Should I call you Dad?" Jeanie, who has taken it all absolutely brilliantly, asks after about a week, while she and John draw pictures about the Detective.

"If you like. I don't mind if you keep calling me John," he answers, while sketching a sloppy deerstalker on his Detective's head.

"I think I will. I've never had a dad before." the little girl decides, and John covers the minute implosion of his heart by pressing a kiss to her dark hair, and continuing to draw.

While Mary gets slowly worse, John writes the second story of the Detective, where the Detective investigates a break in at a bank. He and Jeanie argue about it over Mary's bed, while the woman smiles indulgently at them both, not saying a thing. When she falls asleep, John and Jeanie sneak away, continuing their argument quietly in order not to disturb her.

The time goes by so fast and so slow. Mary improves and then gets worse, she has her treatments and bounces back from them, bit by bit weakening, withering, dying. Jeanie grows quiet and serious as time goes on, just watching with big dark eyes as her mother tires quicker and eats less, coughs more – sometimes blood – and stops going out. John tries to distract them both, writing his story and reading it aloud, coaxing them both into debates and arguments until all three of them are at war about what the Detective should or should not say or do.

John works less and is more at home. They'd have some troubles with the bills, if Mary wasn't surprisingly wealthy – she has a bit of an inheritance, given to her by one of her father's old business partners out of some odd sort of round-about sense of duty. John still keeps working, though, because he doesn't want them to rely on the inheritance. Not, when it would one day go to Jeanie, to paying for her education, her life.

It's been year since he met Mary, almost year and a half since Sherlock died, when the doctors give them a new estimation. "It is inadvisable to continue the treatments," the oncologist says, while showing John Mary's scans – her lungs look a little like a mine field, rigged to explode. "At this point the treatments are only weakening and tiring her needlessly, and with each patch she gets more susceptible to infections."

John knows as much – Mary’s a roller coaster of sick and healthy, feverish one day, coughing the other, and it's wearing all three of them down. But… "How much time does she have, without the treatments?" he asks, pretty sure he knows.

"Couple of months – but that estimation isn't notably improved, with the treatments," the oncologist says sympathetically. "At most, the chemo will give her another month, maybe a little more, but I doubt it."

John nods, and when they get home, he, Mary and Jeanie discuss the matter seriously, while lying huddled in great heap in his and Mary's bedroom. Mary wants to continue the chemo, wants the extra time. John just wants her to feel _better_ , and not be so bloody tired, worn, exhausted all the time. Without the chemo, it will be quicker – but overall, she will have more time because she won't be spending most of it _recovering_.

"I don't want you to be in pain," Jeanie says, tucked between them with her hands fisting Mary's shirt. "Dad's here now, so it's okay if you go a little earlier, Mum. I'll be fine."

It's the first – and last – time John sees his wife cry.

 

8.

 

It's early spring, when Mary finally passes away, after a week of wheezing, rasping, coughing and choking. John and Jeanie are there every moment, distracting her and themselves until she finally falls quiet, taking few shallow breaths, seeming to fall asleep. The monitor beside her wails a continuous note, marking her death, and while the attending doctor marks the time of death, John turns the monitor off.

Jeanie only cries after they leave the hospital. "I di-didn't want to make Mu-Mummy sad!" she wails against John's shoulder, while he smothers his own gasps into her hair and tries to comfort them both. "It's okay, it's okay," doesn't quite seem to cut it, though.

When they bury Mary, there is no crowd. Mary had very few friends and no relatives at all, and the few people John knows who attend, are all from the hospital. Except for one exception, but Mycroft doesn't show up until after the ceremonies are over, and Mary has been laid into the ground and covered.

"My condolences," the man simply says, when John glances away from the grave and at him. Jeanie is asleep at that point, having cried herself to exhaustion, and that's probably good.

"Thank you," John simply says, and looks back to the grave, to the stone. It's a simple thing cut from light, unpolished stone, her name and dates written in black – nothing like Sherlock's sleek, shiny black one with its silver lettering. It suits her better, though. If there was ever a woman to be associated with the colour of earthly white, it was Mary.

"I must admit, I don't quite see why you did it," Mycroft says after long moment. "Why you married a dying woman," he elucidates when John glances at him with confusion.

"I married her because I loved her. There's nothing to _see_ in that," John says, and turns to leave. He doesn't have the heart for this, not anymore – the last time he had seen Mycroft had been at Sherlock's funeral, and this is too many hurts piled on top of each other. "Thanks for coming, Mycroft," he adds.

"Ah, yes. Before you go, I have something for you," the man who is occasionally the British Government says, and takes out a yellow envelope from his coat pocket. He holds it out to John. "I am under the impression that you are writing Sherlock's cases down again," the man says. "I thought you might like to take a look at some of the ones Sherlock solved before you."

"…oh," John answers, before shifting Jeanie so that he can hold her with one arm. With the other he takes the envelope, finding it open – peering inside, he sees a memory stick inside. "I'm not sure if I want it," he admits.

"It is not the only copy, so should you think it prudent to get rid of it, you are free to do so. So as long as you make sure that no one else can't get their hands on it, after you rid yourself of it," Mycroft says, and looks down at the grave for a moment, before turning away.

John looks after the man and then back into the envelope. Sherlock's cases – cases which he hadn't gotten the chance to look at. He really doesn't know if he even wants to, anymore.

But he takes the envelope nevertheless, tucking it into his pocket and carrying Jeanie away from Mary's final resting place. There is a lot to do, a whole new life to plan – a child to comfort and care and raise. He would think about the stick and whatever it contained later.

He ends up looking through the memory stick that very night, when Jeanie has cried herself to sleep again, and he has tucked her in for the night. The memory stick is enormous, having a good thirty Gigabytes of information in it, and it's filled to the brim. Text documents, a few random movie clips, some mp3, photographs and endless amounts of scans of papers, notes, newspaper clippings, and whatnot. It's all without order in a single folder, with names like _14321.jpg_ and _12723.mp3_ , and by the looks of it he has to wade through the entire memory stick and all that is in it, to actually see what it is about.

The concept is a bit irritating, but also… it makes his heart skip a beat in a way it hasn't in a long while – in a way Mary, bless her soul, never has. So, with a deep breath, John clicks on the first file _, 00442.txt_ , and starts to read.

 

9.

 

It's not smooth sailing, going from being a family of three to being family of two. Jeanie, who had remained as strong as she could while her mother withered, grows sullen after Mary's death, and a month goes by with her being quiet, trying to avoid dinner times, crying herself to sleep and never wanting to talk about her mother. John does what he can, but he doesn't have the experience required to handle it, and it is, in the end, the people at the day nursery where he leaves the girl before going to work each day, that approach him about it.

"Jeanie is extremely mature for her age, but she is still only four years old," they say to him. "It is more than likely that, in a few months, she will start forgetting Mrs. Watson, and everything will return back to normal. Right now, however, we would like the child psychologist to have a talk with her, see what can be done about… distracting her from her loss."

John doesn't know what to say to that – his own experience with psychologists is less than stellar, and he's not all that sure about putting a four year old into therapy. But when Jeanie starts going from sullen to moody, and their little arguments about the Detective turn into outright shouting matches that leave him with a heavy heart and a lump in his throat, he finally agrees that some help would be nice.

It is tough for a while, and their little home doesn't feel like home. John's bedroom is too big and there is a hole there, somewhere in the middle of it all, that he can't quite avoid. But he soldiers on, through that, through Jeanie's screaming fits, through his own depression, until the ground finally starts feeling more solid beneath him. For a long while, they're nothing like they used to be, cheerfully arguing over stories, but after a while Jeanie stops telling him how she hates him, and how she wishes it had been him, instead of her Mum.

"I'm trying the best I can sweetie," John says to her awkwardly, when he fails to deliver – when the clothing he picks for her are too small or not the right style, when the food he makes isn't to her liking, when the candy he picks for her isn't the right type. Jeanie huffs and folds her arms, but in the end she's never been good at holding grudges.

It still takes them nearly three months to go from being alone to working together and the night John's careful suggestion that maybe she'd like to hear the latest chapter of the latest Detective story isn't shot down, he knows they're starting to recover.

After that, things start moving faster, and the sun starts seeming a bit brighter. Summer seems to come over night, though of course it has been there for a while – but still, when it's reflected in Jeanie's smiling eyes, John lets himself be warmed by it. And while the little girl plays and draws her little pictures to the stories, John goes through the seemingly endless files of Sherlock's investigative history, one by one starting to connect them by references and names and placing them into folders, until he finally has some twenty seven concrete cases with somewhat haphazard timelines, but understandable conclusions.

That summer, John finishes the second Detective story, and then writes a bunch of short ones that take no more than a handful of pages and concern little, every day, boring things. It's not quite what he wants to write, not what he _started_ to write – no. It's what he wants to write for _Jeanie_ , because despite everything, she is still only four and John doesn't want to start writing the story about the Detective's nemesis and the bombings just yet, maybe never.

So, instead, he writes a story about how the Detective doesn't want to go to the store to buy milk, but has to eventually, and how he ends up deducing everything about everyone there, good and bad things both. Then there is another story about the Detective working around a laboratory, which ends up being a sort of introduction to lab equipment and to their uses, rather than a coherent story. John is a bit hesitant about writing the story about the Detective visiting a police station, but it comes out as well as the rest. Things like a visit to an art gallery and museum follow, then a story about the Detective deducing things like graffiti on the streets, how the Detective has every street of his town memorised and how he can follow a car's path just by knowing what turn it took at what point, how the Detective selects which restaurants to go to by their signs, windows, doors and doorknobs, things like that.

He doesn't consider publishing them, not really. He just reads them to Jeanie and is happy to have her feedback. It changes, when picking up Jeanie from the nursery to be welcomed by a babbling, excited little girl who happily waves a fistful of papers at her. "Daddy, Daddy, look what Martha drew for me!"

John looks, and has to smother the urge to gasp. There, in those wrinkled pieces of papers, are multiple drawings of a little male figure, in long blue coat and scarf, with a deerstalker on his head, holding a pink phone in one hand, and a magnifying glass in the other. They are small, cartoonist, unbearably cute – and just _right_.

"I was drawing for some other girls, and when Jeanie asked me to draw her _Detective_ , I gave it a go," a girl, Martha Davidson who is working part time at the nursery, says to him when he asks who drew them. "She seemed happy with them."

"I'm too," John says, looking down to them. Aside from Jeanie's occasional complains about how much better his stories would be with pictures, he hasn't really given much thought to it. Now, though, seeing these little cartoon images of Sher – no, of the _Detective_ – he thinks about it.

"Tell me, Martha," he says, licking his lips as a thought that maybe, possibly… "Have you ever thought of working as an illustrator?"

 

10.

 

It's almost two years to the date since Sherlock's death, when the first Detective book is published. It’s the result of a lot of work, and the loss of about half of John's savings, to get it done, and it's not just his work that gets him there. Martha works admirably as an illustrator, sketching out a few scenes for the short stories, nothing incredibly polished but the sketchy, cartoony look _fits_ well in John's opinion. Martha is invaluable in other aspects too – most of her friends are budding artists as well, and one of them, Laura Johnson, is especially talented in page layout. John never meets her – she's studying in Dublin and they only communicate through emails, but she's the one who fits John's texts and Martha's drawings into the pages of a book.

 _The Detective Vol. 1_ is entirely self-published – John takes the finished product to a printing firm, pays more than he maybe would've liked, and gets his hardcover version of his and his two partner's handiwork. He pays Laura and Martha both a little bit for their work, sends them both several copies of the book which they can use in their portfolios, and for a while it seems like that will be the end of it. Jeanie is certainly happy to have something to leaf through, and she loves the illustrations, and so as long as his little girl is happy, John is happy.

Then he finds out that Martha has shown the book to some of her teachers, who in turn have shown it to a publisher. John finds himself soon after on the receiving end of several proposals and contract offerings, which he hesitates to accept for a long while until finally they give him an offer that is a bit too generous for him to refuse. A few months later, _the Detective Vol. 1_ has its second print under an actual publishing house's mark.

A few weeks after that, John has a significant increase in the contents of his bank account, as well as an editor, an agent, a contract - and a deadline of a half a year for _the Detective Vol. 2_. Martha agrees happily to illustrate the second volume as well, and any future volumes too – especially now that she'll be well paid for the work. While Jeanie spins about in excitement about having a dad who writes _books_ which the kids at the nursery like and at work Sarah congratulates John of his new secondary occupation, John starts planning the second volume.

For a while he worries, though, and waits for the other shoe to drop – his name does have certain bad connections, especially when detective business is concerned. The first volume of the Detective books has nothing truly worrying in it – no deaths, no criminal investigations, just the Detective going about, deducing normal life, but still… for weeks he waits for angry calls, for reporters, for emails demanding to know how he dares to start his rubbish again.

Nothing like that happens. Only thing that really does happen is while John is finishing the third short story of the five that would go into the volume two, when Greg calls him. "I saw the book," the inspector says, a bit awkward and gruff and John realises that they haven't talked in over two years, haven't even seen each other. "My ex-wife bought it for our son, it was… it was good."

"Thanks," John says, not knowing what else to say. "Um. I'm writing another one."

"I figured you might be," Greg agrees. They then stop talking about the books, about the stories, and instead John asks about how the other man's kids are doing.

"How about you? Got yourself a girlfriend?" Greg asks, awkward small talk that had once came so easily, and it takes John a long moment to figure out how to tell the man that he had gotten married, widowed and is now a single father. Somehow, just trying it makes him feel guilty – like he has been hiding the fact, like it is a _secret_.

A week later, he and Jeanie join Greg and his two sons, David and Leo, at the London Zoo. It's a bit awkward and somehow guilty, but the kids make it nice and it's somehow relieving to see Jeanie so quickly getting along with the boys who are more or less her age. After a while, the adults manage to do the same, more or less, and though the past looms there – Greg's ruined career, John's ruined reputation, and the chasm that was Sherlock Holmes – they manage to navigate around it.

A few days later, John gets an email from Sally Donovan, and then another from Molly Hooper – even Mrs. Hudson sends him an email, making John believe that Lestrade had spread the word about him. He doesn't mind, though, it feels nice, better than it has in a long while, and after answering, after telling them how he is doing and asking how they are doing, he feels… at peace.

Jeanie plays in the living room, her doll playing the Detective and her teddy being some poor bloke the Detective was deducing, and as John turns to his laptop to continue writing, it really feels all right.

 

∞.

 

 _The Detective Vol. 3_ is the biggest one, having almost a hundred pages, and detailing the case of the Lady in Pink. It takes John a month of constant arguing with his publisher to get it published just the way it is – they want him to take the murder out, turn the case into something more child friendly. He doesn't relent, not just because of principle and because the story is already perfect, but because people die all the time, they are killed all the time, and he knows the difference between teaching kids to handle it and keeping them oblivious to it.

If Jeanie can understand the concept of death and accept it at the age of three, then so can other kids.

Unsurprisingly, the third volume makes the biggest impact, and it gets John the feedback he has been expecting since his first book – but not in the way he expected. Sure, there are some disgruntled parents who liked the first two volumes, but who then told him in their emails that they had skipped over the pages about the Pink Lady's death because their kids were just too young for that. Most of the messages are positive, however, and more than that. One of them actually asks if he would feature more death in his later books – a few going into details about how their family members had died in accidents, in incidents and to illnesses, and how they would very much like to see a book that would help their kids understand it better.

It is a bit strange and humbling, but John understands – better than his publishers does, certainly, but they don't have history with Mary and children like Jeanie to show them. The messages make him decide against making the Banker Case the fourth volume, and instead he digs into the folders of Sherlock's old cases, until he finds one where the death was caused by a near implausible sequence of events – which Sherlock had been asked to investigate as a murder, but which had in had turned out to be a near complete accident.

Writing a story about events he hasn't witnessed is harder and easier than he thought – but then, he does that with volumes one and two too, even if on a smaller scale. Piecing together what might've been done, what the Detective might've deduced about this or that person, how the evidence had led him to a chase, it's fun, though. It's almost exciting, and for a while John almost feels like… like he had been there.

After finishing, he gets an anonymous message, telling him where he went wrong. He doesn't need it signed to know who it is from, and though it ticks him off a bit, he takes heed of it and corrects most of his mistakes, wanting to be as honest to the original material as he can. Why Mycroft is taking interest in him writing children's stories, he's not sure, but he's not about to turn the help down.

Eventually _Vol. 4_ hits the stores as well, coming out very close to the third year mark after Sherlock's death. John doesn't get the chance to lament on the time gone by, or wonder how it doesn't hurt so much, to think of Sherlock anymore – he's too busy. He has to take a month off from the hospital, in order to tour bookstores, libraries and children's hospitals, signing and reading the newest book and bits and pieces of the old ones out loud to a growing audience. Jeanie comes with him, enjoying every moment of it, delighting in getting to interact with kids she doesn't know, but have one thing in common – she's becoming quite the little braggart, much to John's amusement.

"Would you like a dedication?" he asks, for what feels like the hundredth time, barely glancing up while accepting the book the next person in line hands to him. It's not the volume four, however, but the third one, making John frown a bit. On its own, his mind goes off to deduce from the worn corners and slightly wrinkled pages that it has been read very often, but very carefully – there are no tears or stains which he could see in Jeanie's more beloved books.

 "To SH, if you don't mind," a familiar, deep voice says, and John's hands pause in their inspection of _the Detective Vol. 3_. Jeanie is somewhere behind him, beside his manager, talking with some other kids about what is their favourite Detective book – she's laughing through the sudden stillness around John. The world seems still, with only that laughter and the echo of the words fading.

Slowly, very slowly, John looks up.

 


End file.
